The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(7)

I finished buttoning my shirt and then bent down to help guide my feet into my shoes.

"Wait," he pleaded softly, hoping to sway me once again by his unyielding desperation for me.

But his tactics were useless on me now. I was no longer the same person he had met in the bar.

"Come sit down. Let's just talk. We can discuss car engines if you want," he offered in an artificial display of thoughtfulness.

I smiled without even the hint of feeling. "I'm not who you want me to be, Raymond."

His forehead wrinkled in aggravated confusion. "Huh?"

I was all business now. "I was hired by a Mrs. Anne Jacobs, who suspected that you had unfaithful tendencies, and therefore requested my services as a fidelity inspector."

His eyes grew wide at the mention of her name. "What the f*ck?"

And this is where that remorse comes in.

He dropped his head between his knees. His fingers ran through his hair and around to the back of his neck. He pulled his chin up long enough to say, "She hired you?"

I stood emotionless and looked him straight in the eye. "Yes." It was my duty now to be completely impassive. No pity, no compassion. Nothing.

He groaned loudly and shut his eyes again. It was time for me to leave. I grabbed my bag and jacket and headed for the door. But not before leaving a small black card on the dresser. The only thing I ever leave behind after an assignment.

I guess you could say it was my calling card. But I don't like to think of it as proof that I was there. More proof that something needs to change.

"Wait," I heard Raymond say again. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him get up and reach down to pick up his slacks, which had been kicked halfway across the room in our semi-authentic heat of the moment. He pulled a black leather wallet from the back pocket and opened it. "What's she paying you, a grand? Fifteen hundred? Look, I'll double it." He reached inside the billfold and started to count out hundred-dollar bills.

I turned around and watched him coldly sift through his pile of money like a miser with his beloved stack of cash. "This is not about money," I responded flatly, before continuing to the door.

"It's always about money," he pressed indignantly. "How much do you want?"

I stopped, contemplated for a moment, and then slowly turned to face him again.

Raymond cracked a triumphant smile at what appeared to be my sudden change of heart.

"I'm sorry," I offered sincerely. "But my loyalty is not for sale."

His smile morphed into a patronizing grin. "Trust me, honey. I have enough money to buy anyone's loyalty."

And just then a small, shiny object on the ground caught my eye. I immediately recognized it as Raymond Jacobs's wedding band, having evidently fallen out of his shirt pocket during our earlier disrobing scramble. I bent down to pick it up, and then with the delicacy of a surgeon mending an open heart, I gently placed it on top of the dresser. "Apparently not," I replied.

I never know what happens after that because it's not my job to know. My part is over. The intention has been confirmed. And that's all I'm here to do. To confirm it or deny it.

Now it was time for me to leave.

So I did.





2

A Hopeful Salvation


IN EIGHTH grade I read the story of Pandora's box.

And I've never been the same since.

It spoke to me somehow. Not because I was morbidly obsessed with the fact that one woman alone managed to release all crime, sin, and disease into the human world (which is ironically the same story as Adam and Eve's) but because of the way the story shed a positive light on the subject of human suffering.

Pandora was asked by the gods to watch over a mysterious box that she was instructed never to open. But her relentless curiosity was no match for her waning discipline, and once she lifted the lid, she unwittingly released evil into the world in the form of ugly winged creatures that fluttered out of their prison in a burst of light and air. Upon seeing the hideous beings that had escaped, she panicked and slammed the lid shut again, immediately wondering if opening it had been the wisest decision after all.

But then she heard a tiny voice call from inside the box. Open, open! Please let me out! I will heal you! it cried.

She opened the box once again to find that the gods, in a last-minute, compassionate afterthought, had placed one benevolent creature in a box full of demons. That creature was called "hope" and its task was to heal the wounds inflicted by the evil spirits that were now wreaking havoc on our once-perfect paradise.

Upon reading this tale, I felt comforted to know that even thousands and thousands of years ago, when stories like this were written and then passed along from generation to generation, one universal concept held true. Just as it does today.

Hope heals disaster.



MY MISSION has been clear from day one.

Uncover the truth. Set minds at ease. Give women a chance to move on with their lives.

But not everyone sees this job as a worthy cause. And that's why not many people know about it. In fact, that's why nobody knows about it.

Not even my best friends.

Not even my family.

To everyone in my life, I am Jennifer Hunter. A hardworking, successful investment banker at Stanley Marshall Bank. And that's exactly who I used to be.